•The aquaporin gene family plays a pivotal role in crop stress response.•This comprehensive review identifies over 5200 AQP isoforms.•Provides valuable insights into the diverse functions of ...aquaporins in plants, enriching our understanding of their roles.
To enhance crop survival and yield, a comprehensive understanding of abiotic stresses responses is crucial. The aquaporin AQP gene family, renowned for its pivotal role in various physiological processes and environmental adaptations, offers potential for enhancing crop resilience. This systematic review aims to provide thorough insights into genome-wide analyses of aquaporin genes across various plant species. With the advent of whole-genome sequencing, genome-wide analyses have become indispensable for identifying novel AQP genes in plants. While numerous studies have reported the functional and structural characterization of these genes using in silico approaches, our approach involved a meta-analysis of papers available in various electronic databases, following predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria, up to November 2022. Incorporating 82 studies, this systematic review, collectively identified over 5200 AQP isoforms. The PIPs (1803), TIPs (1538), and NIPs (1297) subfamilies notably exhibited the highest number of isoforms, while SIPs and XIPs had 435 and 201 isoforms, respectively. Overall, this review constitutes a significant contribution, providing a comprehensive analysis of genome-wide data on plant aquaporin genes. It contributes to the understanding of the diverse roles of aquaporins and their isoforms, elucidating their functions and regulations across different plant species under various stress conditions.
Barley is an important crop worldwide known for its adaptation to harsh environments and used in multiple forms as feed, food and beverages. Its productivity is affected by major abiotic and biotic ...stresses. Scald caused by hemibiotrophic fungus
is a major foliar disease in many parts of the world. Host plant resistance is targeted by breeders to efficiently control this disease. An association mapping panel of 316 spring barley genotypes (AM2017) was screened for seedling resistance in greenhouse against three
isolates and for adult plant resistance in three field locations in Morocco. The phenotyping results showed different numbers of entries with resistant and moderately resistant reactions at both seedling and adult plant stages. The reactions differed between the isolates with the highest percentage of resistant genotypes observed for isolate SC-S611 (49.4%) and highest percentage of susceptible genotypes (73.8%) for isolate SC-1122. At adult plant stage, the highest percentage of scald resistant genotypes (64.5%) was observed at Rommani site compared to 56% at Guich site and only 28.8% at Marchouch site. Seven genotypes were resistant at the seedling and adult plant stages. Genome wide association study (GWAS) revealed 102 MTA (15 QTL) at the seedling stage, and 25 MTA (12 QTL) associated with scald resistance at the adult plant stage. In addition, the sequences of 92 out of 102 at SRT, and 24 out of 25 significant SNP markers at APR were located in genomic regions enriched with functional proteins involved in diverse cellular processes including disease resistance. These markers span over all chromosomes with the majority of SNPs located on 3H and 7H. This study has verified 18 QTL reported in previous studies. In addition, it was successful in identifying new sources of resistance and novel genomic regions which could help in enhancing scald resistance in barley breeding programs.
Introduction: Viral hepatitis B is a global scourge affecting millions of people worldwide. In Morocco, hepatitis B is considered a public health problem, and available data converge to consider ...Morocco as a country with intermediate endemicity. In the present study, we have planned to evaluate the HBV prevalence in Morocco on a large scale and to assess the prevalence of different serological markers for better management of this infection in Morocco. Methods: This study was conducted on 18,877 patients referring to the Ibn Sina University Hospital Center of Rabat, Morocco. HBV serological markers including HBsAg, HBsAb, HBeAg, HBeAb, and total HBcAb were assessed by immune-enzymatic assays. The quantification of HBV DNA was performed by real-time PCR. Results: The overall prevalence of positive cases for HBsAg, HBsAb, and total HBcAb was 2.47%, 27.66%, and 21.2%, respectively. From 141 patients with an isolated HBcAb serological profile (HBcAb+/HBsAb−/HBsAg−), HBV DNA was detected in 10 patients, representing a rate of 7.09%. In the present study, up to 95.78% of HBV chronic carriers were negative for HBeAg. Conclusion: This study highlights a higher prevalence of HBsAg in the hospital-based population than the general population reported previously in Morocco and a very low HBV immunization coverage. Of particular interest, detectable HBV DNA levels in isolated HBcAb patients show that exclusive HBsAg screening cannot eliminate the risk of HBV transmission in certain cases. Many efforts are then mandatory to promote serological testing and increase the vaccination rate to limit viral dissemination for better management of this disease in Morocco.
Durum wheat is an important crop for the human diet and its consumption is gaining popularity. In order to ensure that durum wheat production maintains the pace with the increase in demand, it is ...necessary to raise productivity by approximately 1.5% per year. To deliver this level of annual genetic gain the incorporation of molecular strategies has been proposed as a key solution. Here, four RILs populations were used to conduct QTL discovery for grain yield (GY) and 1,000 kernel weight (TKW). A total of 576 individuals were sown at three locations in Morocco and one in Lebanon. These individuals were genotyped by sequencing with 3,202 high-confidence polymorphic markers, to derive a consensus genetic map of 2,705.7 cM, which was used to impute any missing data. Six QTLs were found to be associated with GY and independent from flowering time on chromosomes 2B, 4A, 5B, 7A and 7B, explaining a phenotypic variation (PV) ranging from 4.3 to 13.4%. The same populations were used to train genomic prediction models incorporating the relationship matrix, the genotype by environment interaction, and marker by environment interaction, to reveal significant advantages for models incorporating the marker effect. Using training populations (TP) in full sibs relationships with the validation population (VP) was shown to be the only effective strategy, with accuracies reaching 0.35-0.47 for GY. Reducing the number of markers to 10% of the whole set, and the TP size to 20% resulted in non-significant changes in accuracies. The QTLs identified were also incorporated in the models as fixed effects, showing significant accuracy gain for all four populations. Our results confirm that the prediction accuracy depends considerably on the relatedness between TP and VP, but not on the number of markers and size of TP used. Furthermore, feeding the model with information on markers associated with QTLs increased the overall accuracy.
Durum wheat (Triticum turgidum subsp. durum) is mostly grown in Mediterranean type environments, characterized by unpredictable rainfall amounts and distribution, heat stress, and prevalence of major ...diseases and pests, all to be exacerbated with climate change. Pre-breeding efforts transgressing adaptive genes from wild relatives need to be strengthened to overcome these abiotic and biotic challenges. In this study, we evaluated the yield stability of 67 lines issued from interspecific crosses of Cham5 and Haurani with Triticum dicoccoides, T. agilopoides, T. urartu, and Aegilops speltoides, grown under 15 contrasting rainfed and irrigated environments in Morocco, and heat-prone conditions in Sudan. Yield stability was assessed using parametric (univariate (e.g., Bi, S2di, Pi etc) and multivariate (ASV, SIPC)) and non-parametric (Si1, Si2, Si3 and Si6) approaches. The combined analysis of variance showed the highly significant effects of genotypes, environments, and genotype-by-environment interaction (GEI). The environments varied in yield (1370–6468 kg/ha), heritability (0.08–0.9), and in their contribution to the GEI. Several lines derived from the four wild parents combined productivity and stability, making them suitable for unpredictable climatic conditions. A significant advantage in yield and stability was observed in Haurani derivatives compared to their recurrent parent. Furthermore, no yield penalty was observed in many of Cham5 derivatives; they had improved yield under unfavorable environments while maintaining the high yield potential from the recurrent parent (e.g., 142,026 and 142,074). It was found that a limited number of backcrosses can produce high yielding/stable germplasm while increasing diversity in a breeding pipeline. Comparing different stability approaches showed that some of them can be used interchangeably; others can be complementary to combine broad adaption with higher yield.
Isolated from desert, the nitrogen-fixing bacterium
LMR001 is capable of survival under particularly harsh environmental conditions. To obtain insights in molecular mechanisms involved in stress ...adaptation, a recent study using RNAseq revealed that the RpoE2-mediated general stress response was activated under mild saline stress but appeared non-essential for the bacterium to thrive under stress and develop the symbiosis. Functions associated with the stress response included the metabolisms of trehalose, methionine, and inositol. To explore the roles of these metabolisms in stress adaptation and symbiosis development, and the possible regulatory mechanisms involved, mutants were generated notably in regulators and their transcriptions were studied in various mutant backgrounds. We found that mutations in regulatory genes
and
of the methionine cycle generating S-adenosylmethionine negatively impacted symbiosis, tolerance to salt, and motility in the presence of NaCl. When both regulators were mutated, an increased tolerance to detergent, oxidative, and acid stresses was found, suggesting a modification of the cell wall components which may explain these phenotypes and support a major role of the fine-tuning methylation for symbiosis and stress adaptation of the bacterium. In contrast, we also found that mutations in the predicted trehalose transport and utilization regulator ThuR and the trehalose phosphate phosphatase OtsB-encoding genes improved symbiosis and growth in liquid medium containing 0.4 M of NaCl of LMR001Δ
, suggesting that trehalose metabolism control and possibly trehalose-6 phosphate cellular status may be biotechnologically engineered for improved symbiosis under stress. Finally, transcriptional fusions of
to promoters of selected genes and expression studies in the various mutant backgrounds suggest complex regulatory interplay between inositol, methionine, and trehalose metabolic pathways.
Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria (PGPR) play an essential role in enhancing plant growth, health and yield. In this study, we describe the isolation of PGPR associated with the olive tree (Olea ...europaea L.) grown in three Moroccan regions of Zouala, Errachidia, and Essaouira. In these regions, we isolated 95 PGPRs from rhizosphere of Olive trees, 78% of them were characterized by their tolerance to a salinity of 4-11%. We also found that 39% of these PGPRs were phosphate solubilizing bacteria (PSB) with a solubilization ability greater than 100 µg/mL. In fact, Pantoea agglomerans (MRC_ZO_17) and Enterobacter ludwigii (MRC_ZO_97), showed the highest phosphate solubilization rates of ~450 µg/mL and ~196 µg/mL, respectively. In addition to their ability to solubilize phosphate, various isolates had the ability to produce Indole-3-acetic acid (IAA). For instance, E. ludwigii (MRC_ZO_97) had an IAA production of ~60.48 g/mL. In the region of Zouala, characterized by relatively higher salinity and lower rate of organic matter, Firmicutes isolates account for 87% of the isolated rhizobacteria. Interestingly, we found that the olive tree-associated PGPRs vary significantly between the three sampled regions. Several rhizobacteria isolated in this study are excellent candidates for formulation as bioinocula for plants in saline soils.
Understanding the adaptive mechanism of trees to climate change and effective management of genetic resources necessitate a comprehensive knowledge of the relationship between environmental factors ...and their adaptive power. This study focuses on the endangered Moroccan endemic tree, Argania spinosa L., known for its remarkable adaptive power in the Mediterranean climate and heavily impacted by climate change. Through genomic scans along a latitudinal gradient, we aimed to identify genomic regions associated with convergent or divergent selection by searching the genome for outlier loci demonstrating high population differentiation. Variation of dominant markers (Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism) was correlated with variation of environmental factors to discern signals of natural selection in 13 natural populations of Argania spinosa L. along a latitudinal transect.
Genotyping of 130 individuals with 477 AFLP markers revealed six outlier loci exhibiting elevated population differentiation values within argan forests. The BayeScan v2.1 software was used to detect outlier loci, and the (MLM) method strongly associated these loci with at least five environmental factors, particularly bioclimatic variables. Notably, all outlier loci exhibited significant correlations with Soil Moisture, with additional associations with Temperature, Precipitation, Landforms, and Soil Type, influencing the local adaptation of Argania spinosa L.
The outlier AFLP loci may not be the direct targets of natural selection, but locate closely to genes that are potential involved in local adaptation. Consequently, further investigations are imperative to validate these candidate loci. This research underscores the significance of considering bioclimatic variables, especially Soil Moisture, in understanding the local adaptation of Argania spinosa L. amid climate change in Morocco.
Standard 24-locus Mycobacterial Interspersed Repetitive Unit Variable Number Tandem Repeat (MIRU-VNTR) typing allows to get an improved resolution power for tracing TB transmission and predicting ...different strain (sub) lineages in a community.
During 2010-2012, a total of 168 Mycobacterium tuberculosis Complex (MTBC) isolates were collected by cluster sampling from 10 different Moroccan cities, and centralized by the National Reference Laboratory of Tuberculosis over the study period. All isolates were genotyped using spoligotyping, and a subset of 75 was genotyped using 24-locus based MIRU-VNTR typing, followed by first line drug susceptibility testing. Corresponding strain lineages were predicted using MIRU-VNTRplus database.
Spoligotyping resulted in 137 isolates in 18 clusters (2-50 isolates per cluster: clustering rate of 81.54%) corresponding to a SIT number in the SITVIT database, while 31(18.45%) patterns were unique of which 10 were labelled as "unknown" according to the same database. The most prevalent spoligotype family was LAM; (n = 81 or 48.24% of isolates, dominated by SIT42, n = 49), followed by Haarlem (23.80%), T superfamily (15.47%), >Beijing (2.97%), > U clade (2.38%) and S clade (1.19%). Subsequent 24-Locus MIRU-VNTR typing identified 64 unique types and 11 isolates in 5 clusters (2 to 3isolates per cluster), substantially reducing clusters defined by spoligotyping only. The single cluster of three isolates corresponded to two previously treated MDR-TB cases and one new MDR-TB case known to be contact a same index case and belonging to a same family, albeit residing in 3 different administrative regions. MIRU-VNTR loci 4052, 802, 2996, 2163b, 3690, 1955, 424, 2531, 2401 and 960 were highly discriminative in our setting (HGDI >0.6).
24-locus MIRU-VNTR typing can substantially improve the resolution of large clusters initially defined by spoligotyping alone and predominating in Morocco, and could therefore be used to better study tuberculosis transmission in a population-based, multi-year sample context.
Purpose
Mining activities generate considerable quantities of wastes that are usually accumulated in the open air, and form dykes that disfigure the landscape and arable land. The present study aims ...to isolate and select the phosphate solubilizing bacteria (PSBs) from Phosphate Solid Sludge to improve the agronomic efficacy of phosphate bio-fertilizers.
Methods
Thirty-one bacterial strains were isolated from the Moroccan phosphate sludge, from which 24 were retained after molecular phylogenetic analysis of 16S rRNA sequences and characterized biochemically, phenotypically, and genotypically. Strains with the best plant growth-promoting and tolerance to abiotic stress traits were therefore reselected for the biocontrol test against
Fusarium oxysporum
and
Botrytis cinerea
and inoculation trials of
Phaseolus vulgaris
.
Results
The 24 selected strains have significantly different abilities to solubilize Moroccan rock phosphate, and the quantity of soluble phosphate varied between 3.25 and 140 µg/ml. Out of 24 selected PSBs, 33% were positive in tricalcium phosphate solubilization with a solubilization index ranging from 1.8 to 3.5. Furthermore, the selected strains could produce phytohormone (indole acetic acid), siderophores, hydrogen cyanide, and lytic enzymes (cellulase and chitinase). The majority of PSBs strains were resistant to extreme abiotic stresses (salinity, high temperature, and pH change) and tolerant to heavy metals (Fe, Zn, Cu, and Pb). Exhibiting the best results, the strains HFBP01, HFBP15, and HFBP26 identified as
Brevibacterium frigoritolerans
,
Bacillus valismortis
, and
Streptomyces venezuelae
, respectively, showed a significant in vitro antagonistic activity of about 50% and 34% against
F. oxysporum
and
B. cinerea
, respectively. Individual inoculation of
P. vulgaris
plants by HFBP26 and combined by HFBP01-HFBP15-HFBP26 consortium significantly increased shoot dry biomass by about 73.6% and 70.6%, respectively. The most significant root dry biomass increase was observed under inoculation by HFBP01-HFBP15 (5.2-fold).
Conclusion
The three isolated PSBs from phosphate sludge could be used as potential biofertilizer candidates to increase plant productivity. Field-testing with the potential use of phosphate sludge will further elucidate their effects on plant growth.
Graphical Abstract
PDF
